Sanders, the senior minority party member on the committee, pressed Kennedy to concede that health care was a human right, as his father, Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncles, John F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy, had done. Kennedy again did not give a definitive answer.

If approved, Kennedy will control a $1.7 trillion agency that oversees food and hospital inspections, hundreds of health clinics, vaccine recommendations and health insurance for roughly half the country.

Kennedy is nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, a position that would give him enormous control over public health in America.

Kennedy also said gender-affirming care for children has "catastrophic" impacts and that children are not equipped to make judgments about receiving such care. He said he would re